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Robert J. Halderman, center, appears in State Supreme Court in New York, Friday, Oct. 2, 2009, for an arraignment on an attempted grand larceny charge. Halderman, a CBS producer, pleaded not guilty to trying to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million in a plot that spurred the TV host to acknowledge sexual relationships with women who worked on his show. Attorney Evan L. Lipton is at right. (AP Photo/Pool, Marc A. Hermann)

A CBS News employee pleaded not guilty Friday to trying to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million in a plot that spurred the TV host to acknowledge on his show that he had sexual relationships with female staffers.

Robert J. Halderman entered his plea as he was arraigned on an attempted grand larceny charge Friday in a Manhattan court. He was freed after posting $200,000 bail.

Prosecutors say Halderman, a producer for the true-crime show “48 Hours,” demanded $2 million last month in exchange for not releasing information that Letterman was essentially treating the female portion of his staff like a “Girls Gone Wild” episode.

Authorities say the plot prompted a sting operation at a New York hotel, with Letterman’s lawyer secretly recording Halderman’s threats and then contacting the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

In an extraordinary monologue before millions of viewers, the 62-year-old Letterman — who married his longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko in March, 23 years after they started dating and 5 years after she gave brith to their son — Letterman acknowledged the sexual fairs and said “this whole thing has been quite scary,” but he mixed in jokes while outlining what had happened to him, apparently confusing some viewers as top whether it was all made up.

ONE OF LETTERMAN’S TRYSTS IDENTIFIED: Across the internet Friday, profiles and snippets of female members of Letterman’s staff emerged, but no one received more attention than Stephanie Birkitt, 34, the sometimes on-air assistant who until recently lived in Norwalk, Conn., with the alleged extortionist, Robert J. “Joe” Halderman.

For several years, Birkitt regularly appeared on “Late Show” segments, aiding Letterman in his audience interactions, participating in viewer mail segments and appearing in skits wearing silly costumes. In 2002 and 2006, she covered the Winter Olympics for the show. She developed a warm, teasing relationship with Letterman that made for good TV. She had been working for the show since first showing up as an intern in 1997.

In a 2002 interview with Entertainment Weekly, she called Letterman “the best boss I ever had.” And in an interview with the Fort Worth Star Telegram, she said, “He’s just fun. And he’s happy, and he’s nice, and he’s extremely generous with us. And he’s just playful. We play catch sometimes in the office, and we all go to screenings together. We eat food together, we sit around and watch TV together and goof on people. And he teases me in real life, too, but I give it back a lot more in real life.”

KANYE WEST/LADY GAGA TOUR OFF: The much-heralded concert tour featuring Kanye West and Lady Gaga, which was slated to hit HP Pavilion in San Jose Nov. 19, was abruptly canceled Thursday. No reason was given by promoter Live Nation, though West, in the aftermath of his image-tarnishing meltdown at the MTV Video Music Awards, has said that he needs to take time off.

On Friday, Lady Gaga vowed during Billboard’s annual Women in Music confab that she would tour on her own starting in November. She did not give any precise concert dates. Gaga said the two “mutually decided to cancel the tour,” but added West is “going to take some time off, but I’m not.”

COUPLE DU JOUR?: Singer Katy Perry and actor/comedian Russell Brand continue to fuel rumors that they are dating. They were photographed together in London Friday, after each had spent a week in Thailand. As to whether they were together in Thailand, they did not say. Perry and Brand set rumors in motion when they were seen making out after the MTV Video Music Awards.

‘TOP CHEF’ host has bun in then oven: “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi, who has struggled with a condition that interferes with fertility, is pregnant with her first child, according to People Magazine.

The 39-year-old has endometriosis, where tissues that line the uterus grow outside the uterus, resulting in painful menstrual cycles and uterine scarring that could lead to infertility.

“This pregnancy has been referred to by her physician as nothing short of a medical miracle,” a Lakshmi representative says.

No information was reported about the father or how the child was conceived. Lakshmi divorced author Salman Rushdie in 2007 after three years of marriage.

TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, Oct. 3, the 276th day of 2009. There are 89 days left in the year.

1226: St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, died; he was canonized in 1228.

1789: President George Washington declared Nov. 26, 1789, a day of Thanksgiving to express gratitude for the creation of the United States of America. (On this date in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day.)

1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of Economic Stabilization.

1951: The New York Giants captured the National League pennant as Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer off the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Ralph Branca in the “shot heard ’round the world.”

1995:The jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial found the former football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was later found liable in a civil trial.)